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E U L G Y 



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LIFE AND SERVICES 



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HENEY CLAY, 



DELI V R R E U H Y 



JAMES V. BROOKE, Esq 



IN WARRENTON, VIRGINIA, 



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BALTIMORE: 

PRINTED BY JOHN MURPHY & CO. 

JYo. 178 Market Street. 

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Warrenton, August 3, 1852. 

Dear Sir: 

Having listened with deep and lively interest to your eloquent address, 
delivered on Saturday last, on the Life and Public Services of Mr. Clay, and 
convinced that it deserves a place where its merits may be more extensively 
known and appreciated, a sense of justice to yourself prompts us to ask of 
you, for ourselves and others, a copy of the same for publication. Hoping 
that the request will be favorably considered, we remain, 

Your fellow-citizens, 

Thos. M. Monroe, 
Wm. F. Phillips, Jr. 
John S. Byrne, 
Marshall T. Smith, 
A. D. Pollock, 
James F. Forbes, 
Wm. N. Bispham, &c. &e. 
To James V. Brooke, Esq. 



Warrenton, August 3, 1852. 

Gentlemen: 

Your favor of this date, in which you honor me with a request for " a copy 
of my address delivered on Saturday last, on the Life and Public Services of 
Mr. Clay;" has been handed me. While 1 am conscious that I fell far short 
in that address, of doing justice to the exalted worth and eminent services of 
the patriot and statesman who formed its subject, I cheerfully comply with 
your request. In doing so, however, I defer rather to your wishes than to the 
reasons which you give for making it. 

With esteem, your friend, 



Jas. V. Brooke. 



To Messrs. Thomas M. Monroe, and others. 



(tulogn on lenrg Clan. 



Time marks his path with ruins. The crumbling arch and 
tottering column, the ivy-mantled tower and deserted temple, 
forms of things once beautiful and grand, that moulder to 
decay — arc but the trophies which this destroyer scatters from 
his triumphal car. Unresisted and irresistible, he rushes on- 
ward, bearing down in his progress all thai is glorious in the 
achievements of human art, and laughing to bcoih those monu- 
ments of man's creative skill which seem most proudly to defy 

bis power. 

Death) more relentless still, drives the plough-share of ruin 

deep into the broad bosom of Humanity itself. Manh I's 

prime, die gentler grace of womanhood, and infancy's soft 
Sweetness— the brightest shapes in which immortal wisdom 
stands shadowed forth to mortal eyes — sink each in turn before 
his withering approach, and the earth rings hollow with the 
myriad graves that sepulchre his victims. Yea, oftentimes 
before the fabric reared by ins own hand has yielded to the 
assaults of Vandal time, we behold the mighty architect him- 
self droop to the dust, and rise no more. 

And can it be that while (keen/ is written npon all the works 
of nature and of art alike, Man, god-like man, stamped as he 
is with the impress of his Divine original, shall be the most 
Heeling of them all? No, never, never! The hand of revela- 
tion has thrown back the veil that hides the future, and brought 
the immortality of man to light; and we look upon him as a 
flower destined to perish hence, only that he may renew his 
being in another and eternal sphere. 

" Our proudest monuments no more 

May rise to nun tin- sky. 
Tlif stately capitol o'ertarow n 

Low in the dust may Lie; 
But mind, Bublime above the wreck, 

Immortal, cannot die." 

The only thinu r like death which man can know, is to be 
forgotten by the generations that succeed him —to fade from the 
remembrance of mankind like a passing cloud — to vanish from 
the earth and leave no memorial to survive him. Hut even 
this much of death the great and good can never suffer. The 
"deep, damp vault" may claim its prey; but even as the 
casket moulders into dust, the hand of fame will snatch the 



jewel from the grave and enshrine it in the great temple of 
a world's memory, there to shine forever. Thus the eloquence 
of a Tully echoes freshly from the ruins of the Forum; and the 
name of Pericles will he uttered with pride when the Parthe- 
non shall no longer throw its swan-like shadow upon the dark 
waters of the Saronic ffulf. 

Even the tomb of departed greatness becomes a treasure- 
house of valuable lessons. From amid the gloom and shadows 
that shroud death's vaulted chambers, there oftentimes flash out 
upon the world bright gleams of instructive truth, of more than 
Delphic wisdom. The character which shone with imperfect 
lustre through the haze of time, becomes refulgent in the broad 
light of eternity, and the example, impotent of good before, 
gathers immortal energy from the grave. 

Around such a monitor, fellow-citizens, are we this day 
gathered. The volume of a well written life has at last been 
closed. A brilliant star hath shot from the firmament of 
America's living greatness and gone darkling into night. The 
stern edict of an inevitable destiny has been uttered, and 
Henry Clay, the great, the wise, the patriotic, is no more! 
On the 30th day of June last past, in the seventy-sixth year of 
his age and of his country's independence, calmly and peace- 
fully he breathed his spirit forth, and slept. 

That form of more than Roman majesty towers no more 
amongst us. That voice whose every tone was music, has 
echoed for the last time along the corridors of your capitol. 
That eagle eye, beaming with the brightness of the genius that 
burned within, has thrown its parting glance upon the beautiful 
of earth, and closed in death. 

" Now is the stately column broke, 

The beacon light is quenched in smoke, 
The trumpet's silver sound is still; 
The warder silent on the hill." 

But we come not to mourn the mighty dead. He fell when 
age had ripened him for the grave. He fell when the current 
of life was ebbing and flowing feebly in its well-worn channel. 
He fell, but not until he had wreathed his fame around the 
very pillars of old Time. He died, but it was as the Christian 
only dies, with the tranquillity of an undaunted courage upon 
his brow, and the power of an unshaken faith within his heart. 
"After life's fitful fever he sleeps well." The night- winds 
that sigh above his sepulchre, but echo the deep utterance of a 
general sorrow; and the early zephyr scatters upon his tomb 
the dew-drop glistening in the eye of morning, fit emblem of a 
nation's tears. 

To meditate for a while together upon the genius and char- 
acter of Henry Clay — to unfold before us the map of his 
eventful life — and to contemplate with pride those elements of 



5 



moral and intellectual greatness, which invested hie nature 
with a robe of Living light, these are the motives winch have 

brought us here to-day — motives high, hi rable, worlhj of 

American citizens, worthy of freemen. 

Elevated, fellow-citizens, to the position I occupy bj the 
unmerited confidence of your committee, I trust I am neither 
insensible to the honor conferred nor to the obligations imposed 
upon mo. I stand before yon to day, not the representative of 
a party, nor aiming at party ends, but of a people, willing to 
do honor to one who has done honor to the name of American 
and of Man. My theme is a national one, and as such I mean 
in consider it. \nd if, from the necessitj of the case, the cur- 
renl of my remarks shall lead me hard by the confines of party, 
in the opinion of some, I beg of Ihem to pardon me, and to 
believe that nothing is farther from my wish than to make this 

* ... 

mellowed scene an occasion for awakening jealousies, over 
which, I trust, the shadow of the cypress has fallen with a 
becalming influence. 

Nor do I mean to abandon the true province of Eulogy. It, 
like Biography and History, is hut a voice through which the 
past speaks to the present and the future. The silent sleeper 
hears not its sound. Alike indifferent to him are die gentle 
accents of the world's approval or the deep mutterings of it- 
censure. It is for those upon whom the lesson of example or 
of warning may tell for good, that memory unlocks the cabinet 
of finished time, and points us to those monuments of human 
greatness or of human folly thai here and there rise above the 
common surface of the world's allairs. 

Viewed in this light, that species of eulogy which draws no 
continuation from the facts of history and biography, is to all 
intents and purposes an instrument of ill. It may exalt its 
subjects, hut it will depress mankind. It may throw a tinsel 
glory upon mediocrity, hut even thus will it withdraw the 
aspiring gaze of young ambition from the heights of greatness, 
and fix it upon attainments, which, though meaner, seem 
i Dousrh lor fame. 

Remembering these things, I -hall endeavor in this address, 
to hold the mirror up to truth, assured that in the lineaments 
which it reflects we .-hall find something to praise, much to 
admire, and more to love. 

On the 12th da\ of Vpril, 1777, (O. S.) Henry Ci.av was 
horn, in the county of Hanover, in our own Commonwealth. 
The circumstances which marked his natal hour were propi- 
tious to greatness. His native county had already been ren- 
dered famous by the eloquence of a Patrick Henry, his native 
Slate was even then illustrious as ihe mother of warriors and 
Statesmen; and the stars which -hone above hi cradle were the 

planets of the Revolution— planets upon which our eves now- 



6 

delight, to dwell, as we behold them roiling far up the ecliptic o( 
renown. Thus his moral horoscope \vas bright and cheering. 

But otherwise the coincidents of his birth and boyhood were 
far less favorable. His father, who was a Baptist clergyman, 
died when Henry Clay was but four years of age. He was 
thus deprived of those advantages which are found in the daily 
intercourse between father and son, and the consequent influ- 
ence of paternal example in forming the character and guarding 
the impressions of youth. It is true that this loss was greatly 
lessened by the care and counsels of a mother eminently quali- 
fied to' evoke and establish those principles of integrity and 
manly worth which adorned so conspicuously his after life. 
The lessons received from her doubtless dwelt in his memory 
and nestled about his heart; for when the dews of death were 
stealing over his forehead and the outer world was grow- 
ing dim in the distance, that sainted image lioated before his 
failing vision, and his lips breathed tenderly her long unuttered 
name. 

Left at that tender age, the fifth of seven children, to the 
care of a mother whose circumstances were extremely limited, 
Henry Clay was forced to content himself with the acquisi- 
tion of those humbler branches of learning which form the 
nucleus of education; and abandoning all hope of pursuing a 
regular course of study, devoted his energies to the labors of the 
field — labors perhaps not entirely congenial to his spirit, but 
sweetened by the consciousness of a holy duty discharged to his 
surviving parent. 

Following the career of Henry Clay a little further, we 
find him a clerk in a small retail store in the city of Richmond. 
A few years later, we behold him, a boy of fifteen years of age, 
engaged in the office of the Court of Chancery in that city. 
His modesty and intelligence attract the attention of distin- 
guished friends, and under their auspices he undertakes the 
study of the law. In the twentieth year of his age he is 
licensed to practice his profession, and takes his departure for 
the far off West, whither his mother, having married a second 
time, had already preceded him. He settles in Lexington, 
Kentucky, (to use his own expressive language,) "without, 
patrons, without the favor of countenance of the great or opu- 
lent, without the means of paying his weekly board, and in the 
midst of a bar uncommonly distinguished by eminent members." 

Tell me, ye who know not the indomitable spirit of genius, 
when born under the kindly tendencies of republicanism, tell 
me, what shall be the destiny of this youth, who thus goes 
forth to bullet the rude storm of life, unfriended and alone? 
Wielding no influence but the power of an energetic will, and 
possessed of no heritage but the talents which God has given 
him, can his pathway from the cradle to the tomb be otherwise 



than humble and obscure ' Musi ii no! be Ins lo be Bwallowed 
up in the ever-whirling vortex of human life, and ps awaj 

from earth almosl as bserved as the leaf thai the autumn 

wind shakes from the forest ' 

\ our conjectures, formed on the basis of common probabili- 
ties, would be unfavorable. But to him who has explored the 
hidden springs of intellectual greatnes -to him who has studied, 
in iIh- light of reason and experience, the power of republican 
institutions in developing the germ of genius— it will seem no 
marvel that the " Mill-boy of the Slashes' 1 is ere long discov- 
ered climbing \\ ith giant strides 

" I'lic height \\ hi re Fami ' proud ti mpli him ifar." 

Although cramped by adverse circ stances, the genius of 

.Mr. i'i.av was not long in displaying itself. 

"Unlike our common sun, whose gradual ray 

Expands from twilight to intriisi-r day, 

His blaze broke forth, al once, in lull meridian sway." 

A brilliant speech in the Village Debating .Society attracted 
public attention to the youthful stranger. Observation ripened 
into confidence, and lie who but a while before gloated over 
the sight of a fifteen shilling fee as a vision too enchanting t<> 
be real, rushed at once into a respectable and lucrative practice. 

\\ here was the secret of such unexampled success in the 
midst of such formidable competition? It could not have been 
attributable to his superiority in professional learning, because he 
had not yet passed through the " lucubrationes viginti annorum," 
nor fathomed the almost bottomless depths of legal science. It 
could not have been found in legal acumen and research; in fa- 
miliarity with authority and precedent, for in these respects he 
could not have stood upon an equality with a Breckenridge, a 
Nicholas, a Murray, and others, who had grown grey in minis- 
tering at the altar of justice. No, the secret was not here. Then 
where was it? I answer, it was in his thorough acquaintance 
with the springs of human sympathy; it was in his power over 
the emotions of his auditors; it was in the skill with which he 
could summon feeling to the aid of thought; it was ju the hea- 
ven-inspired faculty of eloquence, upon which thousands have 
since hung enraptured, as if enchanted by some magic spell. 
There was the secret. 

But the possession of talents of such an order forbade a com- 
plete dedication of his time and attention to the proles-ion which 
be bad adopted. Popular favor soon opened up before him a 
new field for their exercise. His able advocacy of posTnad 
emancipation — his effective opposition to the alien and .-edition 
taws — and his conspicuous agency in electing Mr. Jefferson — 
had already marked him, to sunn: extent, as a politician, and in 
1803, during his absence, and fas he inform- us without his 



knowledge or previous consent, lie was elected by a large majority 
to represent his county in the General Assembly of Kentucky. 

Can it be necessary for me, before an American audience, to 
follow step by step a life which from this point becomes merged 
and identified with the political history of our country? I might 
speak of him as a Senator of the United States at thirty years of 
age; as Speaker of the House of Representatives at thirty-four; 
of his eloquence and patriotic advocacy of the war of 1812 ; of 
the ability which he manifested as a negotiator at Ghent in 1814; 
of his struggles in behalf of South American independence in 
1818 and 1820, and of the liberties of Greece in 1824; of his dis- 
tinguished services while Secretary of State ; and of his ardent and 
long-continued devotion to those measures which distinguish one 
of the leading political parties of the country. But I forbear. 
Some of these circumstances, and others of his personal history, 
I may touch upon ; but I will not attempt to consider them all, 
nor either of them perhaps, as fully as I might. 

The great theatre upon which Mr. Clay has played so important 
and conspicuous a part, is one peculiar to free governments. Be- 
neath the iron sway of despotism, and the restrictions which it 
imposes upon individual sentiment or popular combinations, 
parties are little likely to be found. Where gyves and fetters are 
the unanswerable arguments for unanimity, there are not apt to be 
more than one set of sentiments afloat — those which bend to the 
pride of power and circle about the throne. There the prominent 
politician becomes either a courtier or a rebel, and the path he 
travels terminates either in the palace or the prison, as it coincides 
with or diverges from the wiry track of State. Not so with gov- 
ernments reared upon principles congenial to man's nature. They 
feel their dependence upon the power of public opinion, and 
therefore break the fetters which restrict its expression ; and 
wherever Republicanism has thus appeared, an invariable result has 
been the formation of political parties, embodying variant senti- 
ments, and each striving to incorporate its own into the public 
policy of the country, not by sword and bayonet, but through the 
grand yet simple machinery of the ballot-box. 

And if parties must exist under circumstances of this kind, so 
will there be leaders of those parties — men to whom the great mass 
will look for the exposition and vindication of their cherished 
principles, and whose views will to a great extent be regarded as 
pregnant with authority and weight. Nor is such an homao-e 
inconsistent with the true dignity of freemen. It is not the fruit 
of fear, but of love — not the offspring of education, but the out- 
gushing of nature's fountain— not the reluctant tribute of servility, 
but the cheerful offering of humanity itself, glorying in its own 
exaltation and doing honor to its own greatness. 

How vast an engine, fellow-citizens, either for weal or woe, does 
every free State possess in the pervading influence of its leadinw 
politicians ! How terrible the power of corruption, when clothed 
with the drapery of genius and wielding the sceptre of party feel- 
ing! How benignant the tendencies of patriotism and virtue, 



( J 

when ihey sit enthroned over the impulsive powers of a noble 
heart, and chain in sweet subjection the energies of an indomi- 
table will ! 

Mr. Clay was emphatically a party leader Nature made him 
a Republican, and indeed I know not in what ether field the pecu- 
liar talents with which she endowed him could have been so 
efficient!) employed, as the Republican arena of party competition. 
For nearly half a century the acknowledged head of a great politi- 
cal combination in this country, he has been regarded with a devo- 
tion to which the annals of hero-worship furnish but few parallels. 
His opinions have constituted the chart by which many have shaped 
their political course. It' lie has not been consulted as an oracle 
of unquestioned truth, he has at least been respected as a prophet 
of wisest counsel. In party strife his name has been a watchword 
and reply, and around his gallant form, ever foremost in the con- 
flict, have rallied hearts as true and loving as ever beat in human 
bosoms. They stood by him in the hour of prosperity, and when 
the dark cloud of calamity shrouded for a while his reputation, and 
the time came for the sycophant and hypocrite to flee, they gathered 
only the closer around him, and gazing hopefully, confidently 
upward, waited till the sun of truth should dispel the circling 
vapors of falsehood, and pour its radiance unobscured around. 

lint if few men have had such friends, not many have bad more 
bitter enemies. Many, most of them, were honorable enemies, 
although some have thought a little too implacable. But no one 
will now deny that there were some few at least who saw in the 
overthrow of Mr. Clay a consummation which would justify any 
means for its accomplishment — men whom the scorpion lash of con- 
science has since tortured into an acknowledgment of their guilt. 

With such steadfast friends, to what might not unprincipled 
ambition have prompted Mr. Clay ? With such unsparing ene- 
mies, to what might not vindictive revenge have instigated him ? 
Into what excesses of party feeling might not an ordinary man 
have been betrayed? And yet how refreshing i- s the thought that 
all were impotent to move him from the path of patriotic duty. 
His nature rose infinitely above the temptations of sordid selfish- 
ness, and now friend and foe unite in the acknowledgment, that 

"Every end he aimed at was his Counti 
His God's, and Truth'i 

Philosophers have suggested that there is implanted in the 
nature of every man some ruling, master principle, which, as the 
keystone to the arch, gives shape and consistency to the whole 
character. One who should look into the inner man of He.nkv 
Clay would not be at a loss to fasten upon such a principle. 
There was in him a constant, ever active, untiring love of freedom. 
Perhaps it may have been inhaled from the breezes that wafted 
around his infant cradle the fragrance of liberty's first blossoms. 
But at any rate, it was there! — a hidden spring of feeling, a deep 
fountain of enthusiasm, that often poured forth in streams of 
impassioned eloquence, sparkling, bright, resistless. 

2 



10 

When the Republics of South America had shaken off (he yoke 
of servitude and maintained thfiir independence against the 
armies of their oppressors, first and foremost in the effort to pro- 
cure from our government a recognition of that independence, 
was Mr. Clay. From his place in the House of Representatives 
he denounced the tyranny of Spain, he plead the cause of South 
American emancipation, as one would plead for a brother's lile. 
For awhile he was unsuccessful, but finally he triumphed, and the 
hand of our country was extended to her youngersister of the South. 

And so, when that land long bowed beneath the curse of Otto- 
man oppression — the land of Leonidas and Homer — rose from 
the ashes of her degradation, and with a valor not unworthy of 
her old renown, upreared the standard of freedom, the first voice 
that from these Western shores hailed its relumined light, was that 
of Henry Clay. Side by side with the giant intellect of our 
country and our age, he stood up the bold and fearless champion 
of a people endeared to us, as he declared, "by every ancient 
recollection and every modern tie." In his speech on that occa- 
sion we may behold an epitome of his powers. Eloquence is 
there seen weaving its golden thread into the strong fabric of 
thought — argument borrowing point and pungency from wit and 
sarcasm — and all glowing with the warmth of an earnest and 
devoted heart. 

Nor can we forget that other illustrious monument to Mr. Clay's 
love of freedom, which rjses from the Western shores of Africa. 
Planted by the hand of American philanthropy, side by side with 
the dark abodes of superstition, the Republic of Liberia is seen 
to-day, throwing the light of civilization, art, and science 
through the surrounding gloom, And when that time comes, as 
come it will, when in point of political and commercial import- 
ance that Republic shall rise to a position of equality with the 
great powers of the earth, the name of Henry Clay will be 
cherished with gratitude, as one of its earliest, truest friends. 

In fine, the student will seek in vain through the annals of 
America for the last forty years for a single movement towards free- 
dom, founded on principles at all consistent with the genius and 
welfare of our government, which has not received from Mr. Clay 
an active, zealous, efficient support. Attached as he was to his 
party, its fetters could not tie him down to a policy of indifference 
to the sufferings of mankind ; for we hear him declare in his 
speech upon the Greek question, in 1824, il ] fit were possible for 
Republicans to cease to be the champions of human freedom, I would 
cease to be a Republican and would become a Federalist." I say, 
then, this principle with Mr. Clay was both uniform and strong. 
But in it there was nothing Quixotic. He was no knight-errant of a 
modern chivalry, ready with couched lance and glittering halberd 
to do battle for every new fangled notion touching the rights of 
nations or of man. His devotion was ardent, but discreet. The 
homage which he rendered was the homage of a freeman, but it 
was no less the homage of a wise, reflecting, patriotic American 
statesman. 



1 1 

The love of freedom made him a lover of his country, becauM he 
beheld bound up in the destiny of America the hope of republican 
liberty throughout ilir world. He saw his country holding up to 
the benighted nations of earth the blazing torch of her history, '<» 
guide their wandering footsteps; — and could he hazard the hopes 
of Ins country and of mankind by casting that torch into the mad- 
dened waves of foreign revolution? No, no! In 1 dared not do it. 
He dared not, because lie feared, and feared wisely, lest perchance 
its hallowed flame might be extinguished, and the obscurity o( a 
starless night enwrap the world's great future. Peace with all lite 
world, hut "entangling alliances with none," was the policy which 
recommended itself to him, not only by its safety and comformity 
with the spirit of our institutions, hut by considerations of philan- 
thropy itself. 

Anxiously did our country await tin; result of that interview, when 
the exiled patriot of the Old World stood face to lace with the dying 
patriot of the New. She had seen the passions of her citizens 
aroused by the damning story of wrongs inflicted upon struggling 
freedom. She had beheld them charmed by the classic eloquence of 
the hero, and blinded by the sophistries of the politician ; and when 
she remembered the chivalrous and impulsive spirit ol her sons, 
she trembled for the safety of her time-honored policy. Nor upon 
the mind of Henry Clay himself had the melting appeals of de- 
spairing freedom fallen in vain. He had felt his blood, chilled by 
disease and age, rush with a quicker, wanner flow along his veins, 
at the tale of Austrian tyranny, upheld by Russian arms; and now, 
when the great Magyar stood before him the representative of 
bleeding liberty, his eye kindled with the light of yore, and his 
quivering lips attested the power of the emotions that struggled in 
his breast. But when, turning from the tragic narrative of his coun- 
try's woes, the Hungarian exile hints at what he deems the true 
policy of our government, a cloud passes over the brow of tin,' ven- 
erable listener. His mind is perhaps busy with the scenes of '7b' 
and '89; he remembers the hitherto glorious progress of his coun- 
try ; he speaks — speaks tenderly, yet resolutely — speaks the lan- 
guage of sympathy, but of patriotism ; and sober American feeling 
has since approved the wisdom of his words. They parted, those 
wonderful men: never to meet again on earth, but the influence 
of that interview yet lingers amongst US. May it be perpetual in 
the upbuilding of a sound, practical, conservative Americanism, the 
last lingering hopes of freedom throughtout the world! 

I shall not detain you by showing that in the course of Mr. 
Clay upon this subject there was nothing inconsistent with his 
position as the advocate of Grecian and South American inde- 
pendence. Even then he declared," 1 am no propagandist. I 
would not seek to force upon other nations our principles and 
our liberty, if they do not want them. I would not disturb the re- 
pose even of a detestable despotism." In those cases the question 
was as to the recognition of an existing goverment — not the inter- 
ference of our own government, as such, with the tottering and 
unsettled institutions of the world around us. 



VI 

But more hostile was Mr. Clay to that odious form m which a 
pretended love of freedom has sought to embody itself— the princi- 
ple of domestic intervention as held, to some extent at least, by one 
section of our country. That fell spirit of fanaticism which, under 
tlie guise of philanthropy, has been scattering its seed of darkness 
and of death over the fair bosom of our land, ever found in him a 
foe. Mr. Clay did, it is true, lend his favor more than once to 
the scheme of gradual emancipation, in his own State. But there 
was no congeniality, either of motives or of means, between eman- 
cipation, as contended for by him, and abolition. They are as 
different as light from darkness — as variant as reason and folly — as 
inconsistent as a sound rational philanthropy, with a fiendish, ill 
judged, reckless fanaticism. The* designs of the one was to let in 
the light of freedom upon darkened eyes, with a gradually increas- 
ing radiance; the aim of the other, to unveil it at once in all its 
blinding, scorching, withering intensity of heat. The effort of the 
one was to let the pent-up waters of slavery escape as it were drop 
by drop; the purpose of the other to tear down all obstructions 
and suffer the torrent to sweep madly and destructively around. 

Indeed, we find Mr. Clay charging upon Northern madness, 
not only the defeat of his own measure, but of every hope of im- 
provement in the institution against which it warred. In his speech 
on abolition petitions, in 1839, he avowed the opinion that aboli- 
tionism "has thrown back for half a century the prospect of any 
species ofemancipation, gradual or immediate, in any of the States." 
He denounced, at all times, as it deserved, the conduct of those 
whose reckless zeal would seem worthier the days of a Salem 
superstition, did it not find vent now, in other delusions, fit 
parallels to its folly. 

The statesmanship of Mr. Clay was eminently national in its 
character. He had lived under the imperfect workings of the 
Articles of Confederation. The evils of that system, so well un- 
derstood by those of the present day — its deficiency in all instru- 
mentalities for securing the common defence and promoting the 
general welfare — in a word, its incompetency to fulfil all the essen- 
tial purposes of union, and the distress which attended it — all these 
were facts familiar to him among the recollections of his boyhood. 
Upon the other hand, he had witnessed the formation of the Fede- 
ral Constitution ; he had seen the first dawning of the bright day 
of its history; he had grown up with the goverment of which it 
was the charter and the chart, and had rejoiced, day by day, in its 
expanding greatness and renown. 

Such was his experience, and it implanted in him an ardent (some 
may say, overweening) love of the Union, which had achieved so 
much. His observation had not detected any fault in the working 
of the mighty enoine, when unmolested by the tampering hand 
of innovation. He looked upon the constitution, not as a galling 
chain holding together conflicting and inharmonious elements*; 
but rather as a golden cord of love, binding the yielded powers 
of separate sovereignties into the fasces of a glorious and imperisha- 
ble Union. 



13 

And yet he was no Consolidationist. Far In mi it. [n his speech 
upon internal improvements, in L818, he said:"] am b friend, a 
true friend, i»> Slate rights. The State- have their appointed orbits ; 
so lias the Union; ami each should be confined within its lair, 
legitimate, and constitutional sphere." It was againsl those theo- 
ries which would dissipate into tlnn air the [lowers of the general 
government, and reduce it to Ihe weakness of the Confederation, 
that he professed his opposition. 

Whether his views as to the auxiliary powers of the general gov- 
ernment were or were not too liberal, it is not lor me to say. ( er- 
tainlv we may all agree that, in advocating those measures ol 
public policy with which his name stands indissolubly connected, 
his object was the prosperity and independence of his countrj ; 
ami we may therefore pardon what we may not be able to Bpprove. 

Mr. Clay was a bold, manly, original political thinker. We do 
not find him following the lead of public opinion or popular excite- 
ment. The conclusions which he adopted were always the result 
of his own investigation, and therefore relied upon with an implicit 
confidence in their correctness. The opinions which he promul- 
gated were invested with a power and earnestness that could not 
fail to give them general circulation and moral weight. His policy 
was not to adapt himself to prevalent notions, but to shape those 
notions according to his own established standard. How well he 
succeeded, we all know. Perhaps no man has lived in our coun- 
try or our times, who could boast bo potent an influence in the 
manufacture of public sentiment, and yet cared so little whether 
he stood with the many or the lew. He did not wait to catch the 
indications of the political barometer. Conviction seemed with 
him almost intuitive; and while others might vie with him in the 
maintenance of a position once assumed, few could equal him in 
the unhesitating promptness with which he assumed his positions. 
Doubtful as might be sometimes the locality of others, no difficulty 
was ever experienced in locating Mr. Clay. He fought with bis 
visor up. He took his place prominently and fearless of result-, 
and therefore the scrutiny of malice itself has never detected in bis 
course any attempt at duplicity or deception with regard to his 
political views. 

The charge of inconsistency, the great bugbear of little dema- 
goguing politicians, could not frighten Mr. (-'lay from the cour.-e 
which duty seemed to point out. He had a sufficient acquaint- 
ance with human nature to have discovered tint inflexibility of 
opinion, under all circumstances, is indicative either of bigotry or 
folly. He had learned from his experience in the history of his 
country, that the political economy of one age may not be exactly 
suited to the next; and he suffered his views, as to the expediency 
of any measure, to be governed by the existing circumstance- of 
the country ; and thus too, upon one subject of public policy at 
least, he cheerfully acknowledged that his views previously 
expressed had been modified by subsequent experience. 

Still, Mr. Clay held his opinion.- by no Blight tenure. It was 
his nature to feel deeply, as well as to think Btrongly ; and no 



14 

power, save his own convictions of duty, could shake his devotion 
to any measure which he might once adopt. Perhaps, indeed, the 
strength of grasp with which his mind held its impressions, may 
have sometimes manifested itself in an appearance of self-confi- 
dence, and contempt of the opinions of others; and many mis- 
took the zeal of an ardent, enthusiastic nature, for the outbursts 
of a haughty and dictatorial spirit. Really no man could be less 
worthy of the appellation of Dictator than Mr. Clay. He was 
bold, intrepid, sometimes impetuous in his assaults upon error; 
but his earnestness was the earnestness of truth, seeking to pro- 
duce conviction, not the ebullition of a haughty self-esteem, impa- 
tient of contradiction, and eager only for its own aggrandizement. 
The charge has been made, but it is more than abundantly dis- 
proved by those scenes in the history of our country in which he has 
stood forth the friend of Conciliation, Concession and Compromise. 

Thrice has our government been called to pass through the deep 
waters of a fierce civil dissension ; thrice has the tempest of 
tumultuous faction raged wildly around her; and thrice has she 
beheld yawning visibly before her, Disunion's horrible abyss. 
Some before me now, remember the gloomy and portentous cloud 
which the Missouri question threw over the councils of our coun- 
try and the hearts of its people. The patriot trembled, the wheels of 
government were stopped, and the Hoors of Congress were but the 
scenes of continual animosity, where the champions of the oppos- 
ing parties either indulged in mutual crimination, or regarded each 
other in sullen silence. The dissolution of the Union seemed 
inevitable. 

Nor less alarming was the condition of this country when in 
1832, the power of South Carolina stood arrayed against the 
authority of the Union. A new era had arrived in the history of 
our government. A crisis had developed itself when, in place of 
the gentle sway of its Constitution, the untried agency of force 
seemed necessary to maintain its dignity. The patriot foresaw the 
horrors of such a contest, while the enemy of republican freedom 
gloated with a savage joy over the anticipated reign of discord, 
anarchy and death. 

I have no desire to glorify Mr. Clay at the expense of truth ; 
but I will not belie the veritable facts of history by hesitating for 
a moment to assert, that it was to him, more than to any other 
man — to his efforts more than to any other cause — that our coun- 
try owed its deliverance from the dangers that impended over these 
two stages of its history. This much no candid man can doubt. Why 
else, upon his appearance in Congress late in the session of '20- 
'21, was every eye turned upon him as the herald of approaching 
peace? Who else then toiled, as he did, to restore harmony to 
its distracted councils ? Who could have borne up, as he did, 
against defeat ? Who would have devised those plans of adjust- 
ment which were at last crowned with success? The importance 
of the compromise act of 1833 can never be fully appreciated, 
because the storm which it averted was not allowed to break upon 
us. But if the condition of things at that period could be ascer- 



15 

tained, we would begin to realize our obligations to him whose 
arduous labors, public and private, whose readiness t<> sacrifice hia 
dearest schemes upon his country's altar, ind whose personal 
influence, contributed greatly to the preservation of "iir glorious 
Union. 

In both those serious emergencies, Mr. Clay had found in con- 
cession and compromise the only means of safety; and the lime 
was to conic when he would be compelled again to lesi (heir 
efficacy. Those were troublous times which preceded the adop- 
tion of the Peace Measures of the thirty-firs! Congress. The sub- 
ject which thirty years before had agitated the country, had now 
again stirred up the passions of ihe community. Section stood 
arrayed against section. Language of threat and intimidation 
came up from the balls of State Legislatures. A convention of 
Southern States was called for the purpose of devising measun - 
that looked to disunion; and between the Scylla and Charybdis 
which on either side threatened the ship of Slate, many expected 
to see her dashed to fragments or engulfed beneath the billows <,f 
a bloody sea. 

It was then that every patriot's eye was turned in one direction. 
To the quiet shades of rural lili: our Cincinnatus had years before 
retired. He had forsaken, as he declared, for ever, the theatre of 
political strife, to spend bis declining years amid the calm pleasures 
of domestic peace. He was old. The frosts of more than seventy 
winters had fallen on his brow — 

"And his grey hairs, in happier times, might well 
To their last pillow silently have gone, 
As melts a wreath of snow." 

But his country called, and at her call he came. The trumpet 
sounded " the alarum," and before many a younger spirit had 
recovered from its consternation, the old warrior had buckled on 
his armor for the fight. He felt that he owed his country a life, 
and he was ready to pay the debt. He saw before him death's 
gaping chasm, yet with a Curtius like devotion, plunged into the 
darkness, fearless and undismayed. There was patriotism, more 
than Roman, here. 

The appearance of Henry Clay in the Senate of the United 
States, was hailed as an angel of mercy. The hearts of patriots in 
and out of Congress grew strong in the confident assurance of 
coming peace. His very presence, like a sun, seemed to dispel 
much of the darkness that, brooded over the future, 

"And Hope enchanted smiled and waved her golden hair." 

How well these anticipations were realized, let the annals of 
Congress and of the country tell. Once more upon the held of 
his fame, and the advocate of compromise, "Richard was himself 
again." The light of other days seemed to throw its radiance 
about him. The fire of feeling flashed again from his lading eye. 
His form was, as it were, invested with the \ii.'or of early man- 
hood. His voice rose and fell, as of old, along the chords of 
modulated harmonv, 



10 

"And e'en reluctant party felt awhile 
His gracious power, as through the varied maze 
Of eloquence, now smooth, now quick, now strong, 
Profound and clear, lie rolled the copious flood." 

It was sublime, the spectacle which then presented itself. The 
exertions of the "old man eloquent" were giant-like. Political 
and personal animosities vanished from his bosom. Old grudo-es 
were forgotten or buried ; and above the altar of his country's 
safety he joined hands with friend and foe alike. His aim was 
peace, and lie was again successful. In that last act of his noble 
life, he reared an Ossa upon the Pelion of his fame. In it was 
seen the setting sun of his political career, throwing its resplen- 
dent beams around the venerable ruins of his physical nature, and 
tinting with celestial hues the brightening Iris of immortality which 
now over-arches his tomb. 

I have spoken of Henry Clay as the ardent yet discreet lover 
of human freedom ; as the sincere and indefatigable patriot; as 
the national, bold, original, conservative, and compromising states- 
man. In doing this, I have necessarily touched upon many of his 
qualities as a man. He, more than any other man within my 
limited acquaintance, had had the faculty of throwing himself into 
his subject and his cause, so that his speeches and his acts are in 
fact exponents of his nature. Frank and generous in his disposi- 
tion, chivalrous and fearless in his spirit, afiable and courteous in 
his demeanor, a true and lasting friend, an open and generous foe, 
he won to himself more favor by the attractiveness of his own 
character, than by accommodating himself to the peculiarities of 
others. His popularity was attained by no arts of low dema- 
goguism or party chicanery. He would have despised the elevation 
to which such means alone might bring- him. With him the sense 
of honor was no common principle, but acute and tender to a 
fault. I say, to a fault, because it more than once forced him into 
positions which his reason and his conscience alike condemned. 
But if in this respect he exhibited weakness, it is a weakness from 
which too few have been exempt, and which will continue to mani- 
fest itself till sound public sentiment has branded the "code of 
honor" with the stamp of ignominy and of shame. 

Mr. Clay was bold, ardent, even ambitious. But those quali- 
ties so dangerous in some natures, were in him moderated and 
controlled by a judgment rarely at fault, and a strength of moral 
principle that was proof against corruption. An examination of 
his character, no less than a review of his life, endorses the truth 
of the exalted sentiment which he uttered in those memorable words, 
" I had rather be right than President." 

His mind was cast in the mould of true greatness. Its various 
faculties were so nicely balanced that it is difficult to determine 
which was predominant. Quick in its perceptions, powerful in 
analysis, vivid in imagination, yet solid in argument, his intellect 
was a polished weapon that gleamed and glistened as brilliantly 
in the dignified discussions of the Senate Chamber, as in the 
lighter displays of the forum. It was in the universality of his 



11 

powers lhat his greatness consisted. No occasion could find him 
unprepared to do justice to il and to himself. Whether it was the 
convivial assemblage of friends, or the stern conflict of statesman- 
ship ; whether the weapons to be used were those of solid argu- 
ment or graceful declamation, his mind faltered never for a momi tit, 
but rose full-armed at once and equal t<> the emergency. Doubt- 
less there have been other men, even in our country, superior to 
him in some particular faculty. Calhoun ma v have been a keener 
logician; Webster a more.- finished statist; I'renlks more polished 
in imagination: but in the rare combination of all those powers 
which contribute to intellectual greatness, I doubt Beriously, hon- 
estly doubt, whether our country or the world has ever produced 
his equal. Verily in him was the picture of the poet realized, for, 

" The elements 
S<> mixed in him, that Nature might stand up 
And say i" all the world, This was a man'" 

The eloquence of Mr. Clay was indescribable by reference !■> 
any model of antiquity or later times. There was in it the powet 
of Demosthenes, linked with the grace of Cicero; the Btirring 
pathos of impassioned feeling mingling with the solid grandeur of 
deep thought. It was formed after no pattern ; and therefore, to 
be understood, must have been heard. His reported speeches are 
but the skeletons of their inspired originals — the frame-work which 
upheld the brightest creation of oratory that ever charmed, while 
they dazzled, the mind of man. 

Is it not a mortifying reflection that a character so exalted and 
public services so distinguished, could not. have escaped the viper- 
ous tongue of calumny? Yet so it was The poisoned shafts of 
unsparing malevolence llew thick and fast against the scg'is of his 
fame; and though he appealed to the great Searcher of Hcan> 
for the purity of the motives which had ever actuated him, there 
were still found some who would proclaim the slanderous charge 
of bargain and corruption. That heartless calumny which some 
believed for a while, has had its day with the good and virtuous. 
It has served perhaps the end of its conception, but it has failed, 
and utterly failed, to throw the shadow of a stain upon the char- 
acter of Henry Clay. It was exploded even before his death, 
and he was permitted to behold his reputation untarnished by even 
the imputation of dishonor. Fortunate man ! fortunate in that 
thy fame needs not the gilded garniture of place or station to add 
to its embellishment. Fortunate man ! fortunate in that thy name 
hath come unscathed from out the seething cahlroti and seven-fold 
heated furnace of base traduction. Fortunate man ! yea, fortunate 
above thy fellows, in that benignant heaven did not refer the vin- 
dication of thy character to posterity, but permitted thee, even 
from this side the grave, to hear thy worth extolled by lips that just 
now spoke in censure, and thy purity maintained by pens that 
once essayed to chronicle thy shame ! 

But even yet I hear the mutterings of a few unconquered ene- 
mii Public sentiment has fore vei iilenced theii tlanderou false- 



■ » 



18 

hood, but now they modestly suggest that the name of Henry 
Clay is unassociated with any permanent measure of statesman- 
ship, and will perish from the memory of man. 

"Blush, Calumny! and write upon his tomb, 
If honest eulogy can spare thee room, 
Thy deep repentance " 

of so base, so reckless, so ungenerous a thought. The history of 
your country and the world, uproots the basis of your calculation, 
and time will prove the falsity of your prediction. 

No, the life and services of Henry Clay will never, never be 
forgotten. Rooted in the memory of four continents, his name 
will be handed down from generation to generation of their chil- 
dren. It will cheer the youth upon whose pathway poverty and 
orphanage have shed their blights. It will breathe new spirit into 
struggling freedom, when about to sink beneath the weight of its 
oppression. It will nerve the heart of the American patriot, when 
the skies are dark above him and the wild winds rage around, by 
whispering in his ear those words of hope and consolation, " Never 
despair of the Republic." The Southern maiden will sing his 
praises by the silvery wave of the La Plata and upon the slopes of 
the Andes, and the bush-boy of Africa, among his first lessons of 
civilization, will learn to repeat with reverence his hallowed name. 
Nor will the voice of Greece, fallen though she is, be silent. Even 
now, methinks, I hear a song of lamentation and of love rising in 
choral harmony from her sacred groves. Louder and louder still 
it swells, till old Parnassus catches and rolls back the anthem to 
far-off Helicon, and the Vale of Tempe answers to the distant Isles, 

" Where burning Sappho loved and sung." 

To-day the column of his fame is seen rising like a mighty obelisk 
to greet the skies. Beside its base the Anglo-Saxon hails the 
dark-haired Greek, and the Southern Creole welcomes the child 
of Ham. Their varied voices blend in one grand symphony of 
praise, as they behold the hand of Death planting the capstone of 
Immortality upon the lowering splendor of so great a life. 

In an acclaim so universal, Americans, Virginians, let us too 
mingle our voices. Let us venerate the character and imitate the 
virtues of Henry Clay. Let us cherish and cultivate those prin- 
ciples of genuine patriotism which adorned his life. Let us love 
the Union which he did so much to save. Thus may we find in 
the national heritage, the common treasure, the unappropriated 
glory of his character and fame, a new, unbroken link in that chain 
of love which should ever bind together those who, in the midst 
of a world crushed with tyranny, can boast the rich inheritance of 
freedom. Then indeed will our country exhibit a spectacle before 
which human oppression will gradually disappear, until 

" Even the smallest habitable rock 
Beaten by lonely .billows, hears the songs 
Of humanized society, and blooms 
With civil arts." 



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